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“She’s Fae, damn it. Let them in, but tell them to walk carefully.” As the officer turned away, Chase grumbled under his breath. “Honestly, I send these guys to sensitivity training, I make sure they’re up on proper procedure, and some of them still act like bulls in china shops.” He caught my gaze and pointed at the letter. “Are you going to open that?”
I shook my head. “Not until we cast some sort of spell on it to detect whether it’s magically booby-trapped.”
A few minutes later, Iris made her way through the mess, followed by Morio and Vanzir. I silently showed them the letter.
Vanzir shuddered. “The Bonecrusher, all right. Can you feel the power emanating from that envelope?”
“Yeah. Next question: Is it rigged? Will it go boom if I open it, or is it just a polite ‘gotcha’ letter?” With a long sigh, I ran my hand across my eyes, already weary and wanting to run home and hide. I’d been feeling far too much of that lately.
Morio took the letter and incanted a spell. A light flared, but nothing happened. “No illusions here. And I added in a variant that checks for traps. Nothing. You can open it safely.”
Hoping he was right, I cautiously loosened the flap and withdrew the letter. As I opened the folded page, I saw it was typed—Stacia was smart, all right. She hadn’t written it by hand. In fact, my bet was she’d never even touched the paper, but instead, had a flunky write it. Otherwise, we could cast magic on her by having something she’d touched. But it had been in her presence, that much I could tell.
“What’s it say?” Delilah asked, crowding in. I motioned her to move back and give me a little room as I scanned it. Shit, this was not good. Not good at all.
“Let’s get out of here before I read it to you. Who knows if they bugged the shop at the same time they destroyed it? Come on.” Pushing past them, I marched toward the front door and out into the drizzling morning. When they caught up with me, I led them across the street and leaned on Chase’s patrol car, hanging my head.
“Come on, Camille, spill. What’s going on?” Shamas had a worried look on his face and I realized that over the past months, he really had been working on making himself part of the family, though he still held himself somewhat aloof and his darker nature seemed to be taking over.
“Fuck and double fuck. Here’s what she says.” I held the letter up and began to read:
Camille, et al:
Consider this renovation a precursor of things to come. You have many friends, and we know who they are and where they live. One by one, we’ll destroy everyone and everything you love. You have two choices: Return to Otherworld. Or you can fight for us. This is the fork in the road.
S.B.
Delilah let out a long breath. “Shit.”
“I don’t know. There’s something not right here.” Morio pinched the bridge of his nose, looking like he’d developed a headache. “Give me a minute.”
I looked at him expectantly. “What is it?”
“Just . . . it’s this. Think about it. Why not just blow us all up at the house if they wanted to get rid of us? Karvanak could have, but he chose to kidnap Chase and try to use him for ransom. He could have quietly gotten together enough cohorts to just come out and stage a private little war. So why did he—and now Stacia Bonecrusher—try so hard to get us to join them? Remember, Karvanak offered a couple times for you to switch sides and the question is, why do they want you three so badly? What piece are we missing?”
He presented a good question, actually, one none of us had really thought about. If Shadow Wing wanted us dead, why didn’t he just order a mass attack on our house and blow us all to smithereens? Why go around and around, sending demon generals who, while terribly powerful, weren’t using their full arsenals?
“You’re right. Something’s going on. But how the hell do we find out what? And meanwhile, how do we protect our friends, because I know that she means it when she says they’ll start taking them out. This letter is essentially a blackmail threat.”
Chase’s phone rang again and he moved to the side to answer it.
“We have to see Grandmother Coyote. We need her advice,” Morio said.
I nodded. “We’ll head out to her woods now.”
Just then Chase returned, his face ashen. “Camille, I’m so sorry . . .”
“What? What is it?” The look on his face could only mean one thing, but I didn’t want to hear it.
“It’s about Henry. He’s dead. He had a heart attack while they were working on him and his body couldn’t handle the shock. Sharah said he went quickly.” He pursed his lips together, and Delilah moved into his embrace, tears running down her cheeks.
I stared at him, mutely. Morio slid his arm around my waist, but I pushed him away and walked over to the store-front. Henry had loved the Indigo Crescent, and he’d been so happy when we offered him the job. And now he was dead, because of us.
I felt a hand slip into mine and looked down. Iris was holding tight. Tears shone in her eyes.
“I couldn’t love him like he wanted me to,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I wish I could have, but I just . . .”
“It’s okay,” I said numbly, blinking back my own tears. Iris was feeling guilty—I could see it in her face. Henry had loved her, had wanted to be with her, but she couldn’t reciprocate his feelings. And now he was dead, murdered in our shop, and she was taking the blame on her own shoulders. “Iris, his death is no more your fault than it is mine. He was happy, he loved working with us.”
